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Patawomeck Tribe

The Patawomeck tribe is a state-recognized Indian tribe based in Fredericksburg. Dating its
presence on the south bank of the Potomac River to about AD 1300, the tribe lived relatively far from the
English settlement at Jamestown but nevertheless played a major role in the politics and warfare
of the early colonial period. In an effort to maintain its own independence, the
Patawomeck tribe regularly played its more powerful Indian neighbors and the English colonists against one
another. Tribal members traded food to starving colonists in 1609; hosted an English boy, Henry Spelman, for a time; and helped the English
kidnap Pocahontas, daughter of the
paramount chief Powhatan. Not only
did the Patawomeck not participate in the weroance,
or chief, Opechancanough's
attack against the English in 1622, they possibly helped the English to poison
Opechancanough the next year. (He survived.) English settlements did not encroach on
Patawomeck land until the 1650s. At first the county courts and General Assembly defended the
Patawomeck against bad English behavior that included an attempt to frame the
Patawomeck weroance for murder in 1662. But just four years
later, in 1666, the governor's
Council called for the Patawomeck Indians' "utter destruction." The tribe
disappeared from colonial records after that. In February 2010, the Commonwealth of
Virginia granted the Patawomeck Indians state recognition, against the advice of the
state-appointed Virginia Council on Indians. MORE...

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Tsenacomoco and Jamestown

Archaeological work conducted in 1996–1997 determined that a Patawomeck settlement
on Potomac Creek, where the creek empties into the Potomac River at Marlboro
Point, dates to around AD 1300. The Algonquian-speakers likely intruded on the area from the north and lived
behind a palisade designed to protect them from various warring groups. By 1607,
when the first
English colonists arrived at Jamestown, the Patawomeck lived north of
Accokeek Creek on the south bank of the Potomac River. Their principal town, surrounded by a
palisade, was Patawomeck. Based on accounts published in 1612 and 1624, they
numbered from 160 to 200 men, and English observers suggested their tribal name
translated to "trading place."

The Patawomeck paid tribute to Powhatan, paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, a political
alliance of twenty-eight to thirty-two Algonquian-speaking tribes centered on the
James and Pamunkey (York) rivers. Their
distance from Powhatan's seat of power, however, and their proximity to enemies
such as the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway, who lived on the Potomac's north bank,
and the Iroquoian-speaking Massawomeck, who used the river to attack from farther
up north, forced the Patawomeck to play smart politics. The tribe took advantage
of the protection that came with their tribute payment, yet still asserted their
independence whenever possible, often playing Powhatan and the English off of each
other.

In November 1609, during the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614),
Powhatan used a young English interpreter, Henry Spelman, to lure an English
trading party into a deadly ambush. When Spelman fled Powhatan's custody, the
Patawomeck subchief Iopassus gave him refuge in the town of Passapatanzy. Around
the same time the English, at the beginning of what would be a starving winter,
sent Francis West on a trading
mission to Passapatanzy, and the Patawomeck Indians agreed to fill West's pinnace,
the Swallow, with corn. A conflict—which anthropologist
Helen C. Rountree has argued stemmed from West's contempt for the Indians—resulted
in the beheading of two Patawomeck. Spelman, meanwhile, earned the Patawomecks'
trust, which may help explain why, in April 1613, Iopassus assisted Captain Samuel Argall in kidnapping
Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas, who was visiting Passapatanzy. The Patawomeck
promised to join the English in an alliance against Powhatan.

The First Anglo-Powhatan War ended the next year and Powhatan died in 1618. In
1619, Opechancanough likely began pressuring the Patawomeck to participate in a
planned attack against English settlements. When the attack was finally launched
in March 1622, the Patawomecks remained at home. Late that summer, with the Second Anglo-Powhatan
War (1622–1632) now raging, an English diplomatic visit to the Patawomeck
went awry, with the English killing thirty or forty men, women, and children and
taking the Patawomeck weroance prisoner. On March 27, 1623,
the Nacotchtank Indians, neighbors of the Patawomeck, beheaded Henry Spelman, who
was on a trading mission.

It is unknown whether the incident was related to the killings of the Patawomeck
or whether the Patawomeck were involved, but Opechancanough hoped that the tribe's
allegiance had turned in his favor. In May 1623 he agreed to meet an English
emissary, Captain William Tucker, at the town of Patawomeck. (Some scholars argue
that the meeting was, in fact, on the Pamunkey River.) With Patawomeck assistance,
Tucker poisoned the drinks of Opechancanough and his party and then fired on the
Indians. Opechancanough survived, but just barely. In the autumn of that year, the
Patawomeck and the English jointly attacked the Piscataway Indians, and the next
summer the Patawomeck may have assisted in a devastating attack against the
Pamunkey.

English Encroachment

With the end of the Third
Anglo-Powhatan War in 1646 and the death of Opechancanough, the English
colonists took nearly complete control of Tsenacomoco's heartland. Their
encroachment into Patawomeck territory, however, did not begin in earnest until
1654, when colonists patented 12,600 acres of land in what was then Westmoreland County
(later Stafford County). In
1655, the Patawomeck weroance allowed Gerrard Fowke to
patent 3,000 acres along Potomac Creek, with permission to build a house, plant
crops, and graze cattle. Giles
Brent received similar permission for land along Aquia Creek.

By then many Patawomeck Indians had either died of disease or moved away, leaving
the planters of Westmoreland County eager to take advantage of the tribe's
relative weakness. Brent overstepped the limits of his agreement and the dispute
was heard in the county court in August 1658. (Brent's mother was a Piscataway
Indian; the Piscataway were traditional enemies of the Patawomeck.) In 1661 the
deputy governor,
Francis Moryson, worried
about war with the Patawomeck, appointed a committee to mediate the dispute. In
1662, a group of Westmoreland planters—Brent, Fowke, John Lord, and Captain George
Mason (great-grandfather to the Revolutionary-era George Mason)—attempted to frame the Patawomeck weroance, Wahanganoche, for murder. After the House of Burgesses appointed
a special committee to deal
with the situation, the chief was freed.

The planters were not deterred. In 1663 Fowke raised a militia and led it against
the Patawomeck without consent of the General Assembly. The burgesses responded
not only by making the county pay for the war's expense, but also by passing legislation in
September 1663 that required the Patawomeck to return any English hostages. Two
years later the assembly reserved to the governor the power to appoint all tribal weroances and required that the Patawomeck sell all of
their remaining land for the site of a fort. In 1666, the governor's Council
declared war on the Patawomeck, calling for "their utter destruction if possible
and that their women and children and their goods … shall be taken to be disposed
of." A 1669 census recorded no Patawomeck warriors, and the tribe disappeared from
all colonial records.

Recognition

The Patawomeck remained in Virginia, mixing their native traditions with English
habits and largely converting to Christianity. Like other Virginia Indians, they
struggled to preserve their identity and culture from the eighteenth to the
twentieth centuries. The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and subsequent legislation banned
interracial marriage in Virginia and asked for voluntary racial identifications on
birth and marriage certificates. "White" was defined as having no trace of African
ancestry, while all other people, including Indians, were defined as "colored." To
accommodate elite Virginians who claimed Pocahontas and John Rolfe as ancestors, the law allowed for those
who had "one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no
other non-Caucasic blood [to] be deemed to be white persons." It essentially
erased Virginia Indians as a category of people under the law.

The tribe nevertheless took steps to assert its identity. The Patawomeck applied
for state recognition from the state-appointed Virginia Council on Indians, but
did not meet the council's requirements. The tribe, along with two groups of
Nottoway Indians—the Nottoway of
Virginia and the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway)—appealed directly to the General Assembly and was
granted recognition on February 16, 2010. Two years later, at the request of a
majority of Virginia Indian tribal leaders, Governor Robert F. McDonnell eliminated the
council.

The tribe is governed by a chief and maintains offices in Fredericksburg.

Time Line

1300
- Around this time, the first Patawomeck Indians settle on the Potomac River in present-day Stafford County.

November 1609
- The young English interpreter Henry Spelman flees the custody of Powhatan and is given refuge in the town of Passapatanzy by the Patawomeck subchief Iopassus.

April 1613
- Samuel Argall uses his extensive knowledge of the Potomac River–northern Chesapeake area and its Indian population to kidnap Pocahontas while she is with the Patawomeck—an event that ultimately helps to bring the devastating First Anglo-Powhatan War to a conclusion in 1614.

April 5, 1614
- On or about this day, Pocahontas and John Rolfe marry in a ceremony assented to by Sir Thomas Dale and Powhatan, who sends one of her uncles to witness the ceremony. Powhatan also rescinds a standing order to attack the English wherever and whenever possible, ending the First Anglo-Powhatan War.

April 1618
- The death of Powhatan, paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, is reported to the English colonists.

1619
- Opechancanough likely begins pressuring the Patawomeck Indians, who live on the outskirts of Tsenacomoco, to participate in a planned attack against English settlements.

March 22, 1622
- Indians under Opechancanough unleash a series of attacks that start the Second Anglo-Powhatan War. The assault was originally planned for the fall of 1621, to coincide with the redisposition of Powhatan's bones, suggesting that the attack was to be part of the final mortuary celebration for the former chief.

March 27, 1623
- Nacotchtank Indians living on the Potomac River attack an English trading party and behead Henry Spelman.

May 22, 1623
- Opitchapam and Opechancanough host the English on the Pamunkey River, but they are treated to tainted wine and then ambushed. Opechancanough is apparently seriously injured and disappears from English records for seven years.

Summer 1624
- The English launch a devastating attack against the Pamunkey Indians, possibly with assistance from their allies, the Patawomecks.

1646
- The English capture Opechancanough on the Pamunkey River. His successor, Necotowance, surrenders to the colonists, and Opechancanough is shot and killed while in English custody at Jamestown.

1654
- Colonists patent 12,600 acres of land in Westmoreland County (later Stafford County), land that has traditionally been home to the Patawomeck Indians.

1655
- The Patawomeck weroance allows Gerrard Fowke to patent 3,000 acres of land along Potomac Creek, with permission to build a house, plant crops, and graze cattle. Giles Brent receives similar permission for land along Aquia Creek.

August 1658
- A land dispute between the Patawomeck Indians and Giles Brent is heard in Westmoreland County court.

1661
- Deputy Governor Francis Moryson, worried about war with the Patawomeck Indians, appoints a special committee in the House of Burgesses to mediate a dispute between the Indians and English colonists living in Westmoreland County.

1662
- A group of planters in Westmoreland County attempts to frame the Patawomeck weroance, Wahanganoche, for murder. The chief is eventually exonerated.

March 23, 1662
- The House of Burgesses determines that the Patawomeck chief Wahanganoche has been unjustly accused of murder and penalizes the perpetrators, all planters in Westmoreland County. The burgesses also combine Westmoreland and Northumberland counties.

1663
- Gerrard Fowke, a planter in Westmoreland County and a burgess, raises a militia and leads it against the Patawomeck Indians without the General Assembly's consent.

September 1663
- In "An act concerning the Northerne Indians," the General Assembly requires the Patawomeck Indians to return English hostages taken while repelling an English attack against them.

October 1665
- In "An act concerning Indians," the General Assembly, among other things, reserves to the governor the right to appoint tribal weroances, or chiefs.

October 1665
- In "An act concerning the building of a ffort," the General Assembly requires that the Patawomeck sell all of their remaining land for the site of a fort.

1666
- The governor's Council declares war on the Patawomeck Indians, calling for "their utter destruction if possible."

1669
- A census records no warriors among the Patawomeck Indians. The tribe has disappeared from colonial records.

March 20, 1924
- Governor E. Lee Trinkle signs "An act to Preserve Racial Integrity," a law aimed at protecting whiteness on the state level. It prohibits interracial marriage, defines a white person as someone who has no discernible non-white ancestry, and requires that birth and marriage certificates indicate people's races.

1996–1997
- Archaeologists from the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research conduct research at a Patawomeck site on Potomac Creek in Stafford County, dating it to sometime around AD 1300.

February 16, 2010
- Virginia extends state recognition to the Patawomeck tribe, the Nottoway of Virginia, and the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway).

2012
- At the request of a majority of Virginia Indian tribal leaders, Governor Robert F. McDonnell eliminates the Virginia Council on Indians.